We must ignore war Vets' demand for Mugabe to go it is a parallel but conflicting agenda. By Nomusa Garikai

We must raise not one single cheer in support the war veterans’ call for President Mugabe to resign because only to impose another tyrant. We want the tyrant to go and the whole dictatorship too so that we can have a democratic system of government and the next president is elected by the people is a free, fair and credible election. These are two parallel, in so far as we both want the current dictator to go, but ideological opposed and conflicting agendas.  

 

These war veterans are fighting to remove one corrupt and murderous tyrant; they imposed the tyrant on us and today they are fighting to remove him but only to impose another tyrant in his place. These war veterans’ mentality has not changed one bit; they still believe they alone are the “stockholders of Zimbabwe” whilst we are “stakeholders who come and go”. As the stockholders, they believe they have the right withhold our right to a meaningful vote and have even use brute violence to deny us the vote and impose their political will, a veto.

 

As long as these rogue war veterans continue to hold on to the belief they are special and deserve a veto they are not welcome in the camp of the democrats.

 

“The MDC would like to whole-heartedly thank and salute war veterans for publicly acknowledging that President Robert Mugabe has outlived his relevance and as such, he should immediately proceed to resign. As a social democratic political party, the MDC has always applauded the patriotic and selfless role that was played by thousands of gallant sons and daughters of the soil in fighting the racist colonial settler regime ultimately leading to our independence as a sovereign republic on April 18, 1980,” wrote MDC-T spokesman Obert Gutu.

 

“We now call upon President Mugabe to take heed of the very clear advice that he has been freely given by his erstwhile comrades, the war veterans. Mugabe remains the single biggest threat to Zimbabwe's national political stability as well as economic prosperity.”

 

This is the shortsighted political opportunism and incompetence the nation has come to expect from MDC; the same opportunism and incompetence behind MDC’s failure to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU. Sadly, they have learnt nothing from the past and so they are at it again now.

 

During the GNU, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were tasked to implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop President Mugabe rigging the next elections. They are five years to do this and yet failed to get even one reform implemented.

 

President Mugabe entrapped Tsvangirai et al with gravy train good-life plus the $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai; proof, so the MDC leaders thought, Mugabe had accepted them as bona fide members of the country’s highly privileged ruling elite. They kicked the reforms into the fire and made sure they were reduced into ashes, they knew implementing the reforms would have jeopardized their continued ruling elite membership!

 

Boy-oh-boy! Tsvangirai and MDC friends were really shocked when President Mugabe blatantly rigged the July 2013 elections and kicked them off the gravy train. Some MDC leaders were so desperate to keep their gravy train seats they reportedly begged President Mugabe to give them any role, according to Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda. It is the same naïve and political opportunism that is behind MDC-T’s praise of the war veterans today.

 

The rogue war veterans Gutu is praising today have been the vanguard of President Mugabe’s tyrannical rule since 2000 to February this year when he tear-gassed them and hosed them down with water cannons. We are fighting to end tyranny and replace it democracy and good governance and they are fighting to remove one tyrant so they can impose another tyrant. These are two parallel but opposite agendas.

If we come out today in support of the war veterans’ removal of one tyrant knowing fully well their plan is to impose another tyrant we will have no cause to complain after they have imposed the second tyrant.

 

It is the economic meltdown, more than the demands of a totally discredited group of thugs, that is finally forcing President Mugabe and his Zanu PF cabal to accept political change. We, the people of Zimbabwe, must be absolutely clear that kind of political change we after is the end of this dictatorship and the creation of a healthy and functional democracy in its place.

 

We must make is absolutely clear that we totally reject the proposed political fudge by a bunch confused and egotistic war veteran lunatics seeking to save the corrupt and tyrannical one-party dictatorship by swapping one dictator for another.  One has to remind the impressionable MDC village idiots in Harvest House applauding the rogue war veteran thugs that the nation is paying dearly for the idiots’ foolishness during the GNU, they must not compound the situation.

 

Some people called for MDC leaders to resign and be banished from public life soon after the rigged July 2013 elections. Now I accept that was the wise thing to do; as a nation we have done ourselves a great disservice by trying to recycle leaders with a proven track record corruption and incompetence. MDC leaders have sold-out before and they will do so again given half a chance!